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A Veteran Journalist and an Ex-Marine Discuss the Iraq Conflict

the breakfast table
entries
123456
from: Anthony Swofford
to: Mark Bowden

Love the Troops

Posted Friday, March 21, 2003, at 9:55 PM ET

Who are these people?

Dear Mark,

As I've watched the war from my couch, so too I watched last night's protests in downtown Portland. To counter the anti-war folks, some pro-troop people showed up, and after a brief shouting match, clans from each side came together. Of course, the distance of the camera disallowed my listening, but the radicals in jungle cammie and the pro-troop guys, all young—the same age as the kids fighting their way to Baghdad right now—came together, and I imagine that they did this not in honor of policy but in honor of the young fighters. I think—no, I know—that our country learned its lesson when it comes to the troops. This I am certain of.

My first and last view of combat was the Gulf War. Last year during the operations in Afghanistan, I tried to get over there to cover for a magazine. I probably would have died if I'd succeeded. I am slow and dumb now, and the muscle memory that keeps the fighter alive, that keeps even the stone thrower alive, is dormant in me. Will you go to Iraq when the war is over? Do you, despite your better judgment, want maybe again to be between the rioters and the army? I heard in your prose both excitement and dismay as you retold that Gaza moment—the novice with the cagey and hard photographer.

Two days ago, I received an invitation to cover the war for a magazine. For a few hours I considered an irrational act—resigning my teaching position with five weeks left in the semester, packing my ruck, grabbing some yellow pads, chasing down a flak, and going. For the hours that I played with this combat-journalist vision of myself I recalled the excitement and fear that I first knew as I packed my ruck for Riyadh. I saw myself crouching to shield myself from incoming, shoving a mic into a young Marine's face as he attempted to clear his jammed—fucking jammed again—M16A2. And this is why I didn't resign my teaching position. War journalists should have no room for fantasy. I am not a war journalist. I am a writer who happened once to go to war. I like being alone in a room for hours and even days on end. I don't like being uncomfortable, I hate temperatures not between 50 degrees and 75 degrees Fahrenheit, I can no longer eat processed meat items seasoned with drops of Tabasco sauce.

I hope that you hear from your reporter friends in Iraq that they went and saw and wrote and got home safe. I have been told that one member of my former platoon is still in the Suck. He's a Gunny now. A Gunny! He joined our platoon in Saudi, eight weeks out of boot camp. He read Soldier of Fortune magazine, and he spoke very seriously about going down to South America and making money for killing. I thought he was insane, and if 12 years later he's still in the corps, he must be. Knowing that this Marine I admired is now leading new grunts into battle makes me think the boys will be OK. I am still conflicted about my service, but I now forgive the boy who fell in love with the corps and with the concept of killing for his country. I understand him. I understand the men fighting this war. Just as I understand the man who thought briefly about packing his ruck for journalist duty two days ago. And, perhaps, what kept your wise photographer friend going, and what made you go after Mogadishu three years after the battle—a need to touch the mystery that propels us all from the living to the dead. A love of calamity and hardship and horror.

I'd like to land in occupied Iraq and stay for a month. Want to meet up in the ruins and see what view of themselves we might offer our fighting friends? First bottle of water is on me. Hold the Ham Slice.

A.S.

the breakfast table
entries
123456
from: Anthony Swofford
to: Mark Bowden

Love the Troops

Posted Friday, March 21, 2003, at 9:55 PM ET
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Mark Bowden is a national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly. He is the author of Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo. He writes a weekly column for the Philadelphia Inquirer and is an adjunct professor at Loyola College of Maryland. Anthony Swofford is the author of the novels Jarhead and Exit A. He lives in Manhattan.
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